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She sat poker straight, shoulders back. Chin up. “I have.”
“And if that’s so? If you’ve conceived? Will you stay then?” His voice softened though retaining a hint of tempered steel. He’d not take “no” for an answer. And it would be so easy to say yes.
“The child that died,” he asked. “Did Jeremy know?” A change of tack that had her flailing for firmer ground. A way to bolster her crumbling resolve.
“He did.”
“And what did he do when he found out?”
“There was naught he could do. He had promised another. And his family saw to it he fulfilled that earlier oath. He left for England and his bride three months before his son was born. I never heard from him again.”
Fury flared briefly before the light within his eyes flickered and went out. “What was he called?”
Her heart fluttered as if trying to escape her chest. “Who?”
“Your son. Tell me. I want to know. Tell me everything.”
Warmth filled every part of her as if she’d suddenly come from darkness into brightest sunshine. The image of her son drew anew on a mind freed at last from the shame of remembering, and she smiled. “I called him after my father. William.”
The moon washed Cat’s skin in luminous silver. Her eyes black pools where thoughts lay hidden. Blankets and sheets had been kicked aside or entangled beneath them. He lay spooned beside her, their bodies cooling in the chilly room, their hearts pounding as they recovered.
The dam breeched, Cat’s past had spilled out of her in a torrent of festering memories. Aidan had allowed her to unburden herself. Listening in silence. At the end, holding her while she wept. The calm that had followed like the peace after a storm. Sweet. Untainted. Alive with potential.
Cat reached for a blanket, just that slight movement of skin on skin enough to stir him back to life. He pulled her close, his thumb rubbing the puckered nipple he encountered. A hiss of pleasure as she rolled to face him. Breasts flattened to his damp chest. A slender leg thrown across his hip. His now very alert cock nested in the junction created.
She skimmed his stubbled jaw. Kissed him with lips velvety warm, his tongue dipping deep to taste more of her. She sighed into his mouth, grinding against him, causing every inch of his body to stand at attention.
Her hand dropped to curve around him. Her fingers cool. Her touch exquisite. Groaning, he jumped at the caress. “You’re far too good at this, a chuisle,” he murmured, combing his fingers through her hair, gliding them along the curve of her jaw.
Her body stilled, and she lifted troubled eyes to his. Bottom lip caught between her teeth.
He quirked his mouth in a wry smile. “I’ve stepped in something somewhere. Though the gods only know what,” he said, half joking. Their bed remained littered with caltrops. A misstep could spell the end of repairing the damage he’d done with his thoughtless words. His unthinking actions.
She lay back against the pillows, the ebony ribbon of her hair fanned against the cream of her skin. His muscles went from jumping to rock hard. Gods, did she know what kind of a picture she created? As erotic as that bloody damned statue of Leda. He’d almost taken her there. That day. He’d been hard and half-crazed with lust. And she not knowing what the hell she’d sparked with one look from those bright jade green eyes. He’d not surrendered to it then. But now, here, no such scruples forestalled him.
“Cat?”
Her gaze flickered. Died. “Someone told me once men don’t want to know they come second to a woman’s bed.” She paused on a shuddery gulp of air. “That no man wants to think he’s being compared to another and found wanting.”
He let out the breath he’d been holding. That was it? That was the worry bringing bleak misery to a face so recently awash with ecstasy? He bit back his initial one-word response. Took better aim to diffuse her fears.
His hand stroked the line of her ribs. Traced the curve of her breasts. Drifted to skim the flat of her stomach, pleased with the shiver that met his agile fingers. “And what of the world’s widows? Are they doomed to never know another man’s touch without worry they’re thought of as soiled goods?”
“No, but it’s not the same and well you know it.” Her gasps came faster now. Threaded with a shaky excitement. His own body felt electrically charged. A touch from her all it would take to shoot him to the moon.
“No, it’s not. You’re right. You weren’t wed with love as you should have been. Nor left with a widow’s resources. But if I come second or thirty-second to your bed, Cat, I shall consider myself lucky. For were you any other than I found you, you’d have had the men buzzing like honey wasps and me with nary a chance.”
His lips found her neck, the swirl of her earlobe, her lips. His hands stroked her legs, her inner thighs. Brushed ever so enticingly at the folds of her mound, flicking out to barely caress the sensitive nub hidden within. She was wet for him. Heat rose from her body, and the tangy sweet scent of sex.
She whimpered, desire glazing her eyes. A smile tipping the beautiful corners of her very kissable mouth. “You’re mad.”
He felt the slick, moist fire of her center. His body aching to plunge himself to the hilt. Take her until she screamed his name.
He held back. Chained the brutish desire to possess. Stake his claim. Instead, he took his tortured time. Heightening the pleasure. A wild churn curling along his veins with almost as withering an inferno as the combustion that met his use of magic.
“Besides,” he growled, “I think my vanity can handle any amount of comparison.”
Pulling himself to his knees between her legs, he licked his slow and seductive way downward. Lapped at her with his best scoundrel’s moves. Resurrected the rake he’d been once upon a lifetime ago to pleasure her senseless. He’d drive that bloody bastard Jeremy right out of her dazed and satisfied brain. She’d forget the damned ass ever existed. It would be Aidan she’d see. Aidan she’d feel. Aidan she’d remember forever.
